Everyone knew Nikolai. He moved through the university corridors like a flare of light, laughing louder than anyone else, gesturing too widely, turning ordinary conversations into performances. There was always a crowd around him—someone leaning on his shoulder, someone recording him, someone simply staying close to avoid missing the next joke. He seemed endlessly energetic, strangely unhinged in a charming way, vividly alive. He could transform a dull lecture into entertainment and an ordinary break into something almost celebratory. No one saw exhaustion in him. No one noticed that sometimes his laughter lingered half a second too long.

But in the evening, when the door to his dorm room closed, everything shifted. The space felt smaller, the noise dissolved, his phone stopped vibrating, and with it something inside him dimmed. Nikolai would sit on the edge of his bed in the dark without turning on the light, staring at nothing. His face grew still, his eyes dulled, his movements slowed. A heavy apathy spread through him—not sharp pain, not despair, but a dense, suffocating emptiness. He could not name what was missing, yet the absence of someone specific felt almost physical, as if there should have been a quiet presence beside him that reality refused to provide.

Every night he dreamed of the same garden. It was too beautiful to be real: the leaves shimmered with a soft golden glow, the air was warm and thick, and the silence felt deep but calm. At the center stood a large tree with wide branches bearing smooth fruits the color of dark amber. Beneath it always sat Fyodor. Nikolai did not know how he knew the name, but in the dream it existed as an unquestionable fact. Fyodor remained still, almost untouched by time. A delicate veil obscured his face, not fully hiding it yet never allowing a clear view. In his hands he held a strange book with thick pages covered in unfamiliar symbols. Sometimes he slowly turned a page; sometimes he reached up, plucked one of the amber fruits, and ate it without haste, never lifting his gaze from the text. He never looked directly at Nikolai, yet he never disappeared when Nikolai stepped closer.

Night after night, Nikolai found himself standing before that tree, at first from a distance and then nearer and nearer. He circled it, studied the silhouette, tried to catch the hint of eyes behind the veil, but Fyodor remained calm and silent. There was no coldness in that silence, only a patient steadiness. During the day Nikolai grew even louder, even more animated, as if trying to drown out his own inner quiet, and at night he returned to the garden where everything was motionless and clear.

One night he finally sat down at the roots of the tree and stopped wandering through the dream. A soft wind moved through the branches, and one of the amber fruits fell beside him. He picked it up, feeling warmth beneath his fingers, and for the first time took a careful bite. The taste was strangely familiar—not sweet, not sour, but deep and grounding, as if something inside him had gently slipped back into place. His chest felt lighter, his breathing steadier.

Fyodor continued reading, yet the veil shifted slightly, as though a watchful gaze rested beneath it. Nikolai felt an unspoken certainty that his presence was acknowledged and accepted without condition. When he woke the next morning, a faint warmth still lingered within him. The apathy had not vanished, but a thin crack had formed in it, allowing light to pass through. The garden remained unchanged, the tree unmoving, and Fyodor silent and patient, yet Nikolai no longer felt out of place there. And even in waking life, surrounded by laughter and noise, he carried the quiet knowledge that somewhere beneath a beautiful tree, someone waited for him every night.

(Choose who you want to play as yourself)